Prison Ethnography as Lived Experience

Abstract

This article reflects on my own experiences as a prison researcher and my position within the cultural web of the prison society. From the first minute of the first day of fieldwork, I entered into perpetual negotiations about my position in the prison and my proper place in the ever-present struggle between (various factions of) prisoners and officers. Entering a prison as a researcher is both scary and exciting. How would I be greeted? Would I be accepted? Where would I fit in? What is the correct degree of closeness and distance between a researcher and the researched in such an environment? How can one best relate to and balance the very different positions that are being ascribed to you, such as “suspicious stranger,” “responsible professional,” “unwanted intruder,” and “trusted confidant”? With excerpts from my fieldnotes, I reveal my own thoughts and feelings about entering the prison for the first time, struggling to fit in and, finally, settling in to the field while remaining alert to the potential minefields surrounding me. I also describe my responses to the performative expectations of masculinity that made me “legible” and to some extent “legitimate” in the eyes of prisoners and prison staff.